Thursday, September 11, 2008

Welcome to the Official Founding Day Celebration of the Department of Heartland Security!

HEARTLAND SECURITY
A Call for Political Climate Change
“The best antidote to global warming is global heartwarming.”
~ Swami Beyondananda

To paraphrase Tom Paine, these are soul-trying times. In this shrinking world that could use a good shrink, we see evidence daily that we’ve reached the limits of our current operating system. Whether we call this obsolete paradigm “lowest common dominator” or “might makes right” or “every cell for himself”, a critical mass of us are coming to realize that a new level of organization is called for. We also recognize that this new paradigm cannot be imposed from the top down, but must be realized and activated from the grassroots up.

Much of this growing awareness has been in recognizing the problems we face. This is good and necessary -- up to a point. My friend Kevin Danaher puts it this way. Imagine you are on the Titanic, and you’ve just hit the iceberg (not difficult to imagine in these times of global crisis). What do you do? Do you spend your time complaining to the captain and protesting that the iceberg has been hit? Do you pretend that all is well, and rearrange the proverbial deck chairs? Or ... as Kevin playfully suggests ... do you build a parallel “party lifeboat” and build a bridge for the other passengers to walk across to join the party?
Lifeboats, anyone?

Well, here is your chance to build the new ark, because we’re in for a spell of “weather.” To actually build this new ship, we must build a new “relation-ship” with all our relations. That means, before we can deal with planetary climate change, we need to create political climate change -- what Swami calls “global heartwarming.”

Welcome to the Department of Heartland Security.....While the name is an obvious play on the more ominous “homeland security”, it is a reminder that we find true security in the land of the heart. Meaning -- we’ve been inundated with enough beliefs and ideologies to make our heads spin. Indeed, much of what we think is true is merely distorted interpretations of age-old fears. It’s as if we’re being operated by remote by dead people. The good news is, when we descend from these thought-forms that separate us, and find communion in the land of the heart, we access a much, much larger truth. This is the truth that shall set us free.
The Law of 75

Now you may be thinking, well this is a splendid ideal, but what about the nitty-gritty real deal? Love is a great sentiment, but in practical reality how can it work? Here’s an example that led me to devise what I call “The Law of 75.”

Years ago, my friend Patricia Sun was giving a talk at a new age bookstore. Outside were four fundamentalist Christians picketing the store. I’m going to go out and talk with them,” Patricia told the store owner.

“No, you can’t reason with those people,” the store owner told her. Don’t waste your time.”

But Patricia went and did it anyway. Within minutes, three of the four had put down their picket signs and hugged her. You’re saying just what Jesus said,” said one. The fourth protester, however, kept his vigil.

From there, I made up the Law of 75. Given the presence of authentic love, three quarters of us are susceptible. Isn’t it interesting that to modify the U.S. Constitution, the amendment must be approved by 3/4 of the states? There’s something about 75% consensus that goes way beyond a mere majority imposing their will on everyone else. It brings us closer to a foundational “agreement” about reality.

At a time when the dueling dualities of materialistic science and fundamentalist religion are engaged in a duel to the death, maybe there is a third and more functional way that can unite us around what is perhaps the most underutilized tool in our human tool chest -- the power of love. Again, this power is tangible and measurable. The folks at the HeartMath Institute have shown that our hearts tend to entrain with one another, just the way pendulums do. Dr. Leonard Laskow,
author of Healing With Love, has demonstrated that the feelings of love and acceptance can actually shrink cancer cells.

At this time of crisis, we have very little to lose and a world to gain. Think of it this way. Science tells us that we only use a very, very small percentage of our brains. Makes you wonder, what percentage of the love in our hearts do we use?
It’s Time to Declare a State of Emerge ‘n See

We have purposely chosen the date “9/11” for our pre-launch of Heartland Security so that we offer a powerful re-frame of the fear we’ve allowed to take hold and manipulate us over the past seven years. It’s not that there are no dangers in the world. Quite the opposite. However, the most effective way to face those dangers is the way our bodies’ own immune system does it -- by surrounding and isolating the “sociopathogens” and destroying as few healthy cells as possible.

Four months from today, on January 11, 2009, we are declaring a new day that will transform the state of emergency to a state of emerge ‘n see. On the date that represents our Oneness -- One One One -- we will declare our “interdependence.” We will take a cue from the highly-successful and highly-functional community of 50 trillion cells under our skin, emerge from fear and separation and see we are each and all cells in the body of humanity.

Unlike some totalitarian “new world order,” this interdependence is the key to our next level of freedom -- the freedom from individual and collective limiting programming, and the freedom for each of us to express fully what only each of us uniquely can. I am happy that Heartland Security will be teaming with the Interdependent Project to celebrate the first Interdependence Day.

On that day, Heartland Security will launch its full website -- designed to weave together this new and functional impulse towards spiritual coherence, sustainable economics, and human relations based on mutual respect. We will also be publishing the Heartland Security multimedia e-book to open a new conversation that will hopefully lead to a new operating system. The e-book will contain enlightening, inspiring and informative audio interviews with some of the leading luminaries in spiritual, economic, psychological and political thought.

Above all, Heartland Security is a community, and we invite you to join. Imagine ... a place where we can explore solutions that are working together, and then work together to implement these solutions, locally and globally. Between now and our launch date, we will offer weekly updates, polls, and an opportunity for you, your organization, your business to become a sponsor of Heartland Security. For a limited time, we are offering a special certificate for founding subscribers. And the cost of subscribing is -- zero. No cost.

If you’re ready to live into the future you’ve only dreamed about, and if you’re ready to weave your dream with the loving and functional dream being dreamed worldwide, here is your chance...
The evolution begins here and now.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! This is awesome! Thank You for bringing this forth!

Leiah Bowden said...

Steve,
Thanks for this wonderful idea and for going to the effort to bring it about.

With shared optimism,
Leiah Bowden

Anonymous said...

I know it's the only way. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I have always enjoyed your newsletters and actually saw you when you were in Fort Lauderdale a few years ago. Blessings and more to you!

Sandy said...

I have always enjoyed your newsletters and saw you when you visited Fort Lauderdale a few years ago. Blessings to you!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Steve!

Thank you for all you are doing here.

Please get rid of the black background; it's too hard to read; and please increase the size of the font used in your emails, for the eyes of those of us over 40!

Thanks,

Jannette Murray

Anonymous said...

This is the THIRD THING I have been asking to find around this time of Political Polarization - anger, blaming, judging, nasty, separating stuff!

I find especially helpful the quip about becoming "cheerful and fearless" as I've seen far too much of anxous and gloomy of late. I gratefully pick up the challenge and salute your efforts to provide jovial leadership to people like me floundering for a foothold in a process that seems too big to tackle.

Huzzah!!!!
Deb from Oregon

Anonymous said...

Thank you steve swami or whoever you are...the message is simple but so powerful, we are all one, we are all in this together. In the light~ Padma